The Rising Tide sat quietly in the water. Even from afar the cruise ship looked gargantuan, the highest points barely below the roof of the even more oversized building it came out of. While looking over the elegant curves of the ship and wondering what this sort of thing would cost him to own, John had to wonder what would make someone have a government that had a shipyard inside their main office. Then again, the governments of the Abyss varied wildly in nature, and the NTC was, mostly, a trading company in origin. The way better question was if they had a second shipyard on the other end of the U-shaped building.

“I really would have liked to see them letting this thing to water,” John said as they approached the boat.

“Nothing was stopping you, shitbag,” Eliza answered and yawned.

“Sure ‘nothing’ but a needy masochist who smashed the clock by ‘accident’,” he remarked.

“MOTHERCUCKER, I told you I am sorry, the fuck do you want from me?!” the blood mage screamed back at him.

“I would like for you to not ruin my life and give me back all the precious moments you stole,” was the answer that came.

For a second, it looked like Eliza would fall into an apologetic tone, as her eyes span slowly. Then she punched herself in the face without holding back, which must have hurt quite a lot, and growled. “No, bad Eliza, be a fucking woman and stop being a miserable little shit,” she cussed at herself out loud; she looked at John as her nose unbroke and healed back into place, “or do you want me to apologize for all the shit I did to you guys again?”

“Nah, I have heard enough of that.” It was Rave who answered for him, smirking from her boyfriend’s side and giving the blood mage a thumbs up. “Just go on with the banter, I like hearing that.”

“Yes, but we also need someone like Momo to keep us on track…” John sighed; the support had left a lot of little holes that needed to be filled. Comforting Gnome? Gone. Keeping their talks somewhat coherent? Missing. Providing trivia and other information? They had to do it themselves. Not to mention the giant mana budgets and the fact that this harem really could use some people that could fill holes rather than provide one… without being a dude.

“I can do that,” Metra said, walking ahead of them all, stopping when she got too far ahead and then restlessly tapping her heel on the floor.

“HAH, right,” Rave laughed, “ya get distracted every few minutes yourself, also ya strip on every occasion.”

“Oi!” Metra suddenly had Qiada in her hand. The thorn tip of the halberd with the oversized axe blades swung down and pointed right at Rave. “You want to have a go, Jane?!” John had no idea when exactly these two had gotten close enough for Metra to just use his girlfriend’s real name. As far as he knew, the only people who were told to call her that were him, Aclysia and, now, Metra. Everyone else stuck with Rave. “Because I don’t get naked on occasions, I get naked whenever I damn well please, and everyone else can suck it.”

“Relax, Mat,” Salamander materialized to get in on this. “Unless Jane was right when she got annoyed with you yesterday and you are physically un-fucking-able.” And there was another person in the club… John got the feeling that that had something to do with the club visit yesterday, that trio plus Sylph had been down there for the longest time.

John watched the fact that cliques were forming in his harem with both happiness and a bit of worry. There were two factions he was immediately aware of right now. One was what he titled the ‘crazy ones’, which were Eliza, Siena and Undine, the other the newly revealed quartet of Rave, Salamander, Sylph (Who basically came packaged in with Salamander) and Metra. He picked the nickname of ‘the hotheads’ for those. Neither names were particularly flattering, but he liked calling things what they were.

Sure, it was nice that people got along well and found some good friends that weren’t him, but there was a bit of a risk that in-group loyalties would become bigger than them identifying as part of his harem. Basically, he was afraid that some clique would start a revolution to monopolize his means of reproduction. It was a tiny fear though and incredibly unjustified seeing how they all got along (most of the time) and he wasn’t without say in the whole manner. Just a train of thought whispered to him by the paranoid scar left by Herman.

He would have loved to just shut off that part of his soul. However, that was not only impossible but also would have been really stupid. Which idiot striving to be a player on the world stage would kill their own doubts? That was just as dumb (if not dumber) as letting the paranoia run away with the rest of his consciousness and pull a Stalin on people.

“I will relax when I fucking WANT!” Metra threw her halberd at Salamander, who narrowly dodged.

“What the shit, Mat?” the blaze elemental exclaimed. “You ACTUALLY almost hit me.”

The berserker babe stretched out her hand and looked behind her. A tear in reality opened and flying out came her weapon, through a portal she had pre-placed on the side of the building. She caught it by the middle of the shaft, the sudden halt making the metal edge vibrate. “Your fault for being that slow, weakling.” Metra stored away the weapon again and went on her way.

“You just wait,” Salamander flew after her, “one day not too soon I will be the strongest elemental John has, and then I will kick your ass.”

“Yeah, right,” Metra laughed, “you are two Tiers behind Undine and then you still have to beat Chompy. No chance you will ever accomplish that.”

“He is a useless hatchling,” Salamander drily stated and looked over to the little guy.

Stirwin was currently busy staring at a miniature seagull, a species that lived around here. Larger cousins crossed over the sky, but it seemed they were smart enough not to land here, as they would be subject to security measures. Not even abyssal harbours were safe from these aerial rats, although John had to wonder what the explanation here was. His bet was on crazed alchemist thinking it was a good idea at the time.

Darting forwards with the grace of a hatchling, Stirwin missed the seagull by a figurative mile and then fell and tumbled over himself and into the water. He was about as stealthy as a lamppost in the middle of the night, spreading a soft glow as he swam back up to the surface and cut through the clean water. By swimming he at least was able to keep up with the group, so John just kept Jack’s eyes on his final elemental.

“If you think he is just that, you are in for a surprise in the future,” Metra told everyone. She had alluded that she knew something about Stirwin before, but she kept her mouth shut. According to her, it was one of her old contracts, so she was under obligation to disclose a minimal amount at best.

“I will still kick your metallic ass,” Salamander declared, “even if I have to melt your skin off.”

“Feel free to try, Sal.” Metra’s tone was an honest challenge, and the smile on her face was less mocking and more daring. “You got spunk, so that is something.”

John noted that his fire spirit had something shift inside her mind upon hearing that. It was a shift back to normalcy, to be exact, so he had missed something. A hurt sense of pride, perhaps? Whatever it was, it doubtlessly had to do with the thing Salamander wanted to talk with him about… eventually.

‘To be pushy or not to be pushy,’ John thought, having still not decided on his course of action regarding that. She already knew about his resolution to push her and Gnome as his next priority in power-ups, and she did seem to have liked that a lot. Maybe that had been it? It wasn’t like Salamander hid any of her character flaws, the part of her mind she had fenced off was still smaller than what Undine kept from them on most given days. If John hadn’t known that there was something he was supposed to be looking for, he would have just slipped right by it.

Just because it was a smaller thing in Salamander’s mind didn’t mean that it couldn’t have a similarly disastrous outcome though. Then again, getting infected by some corruption fluid was hard to reach. Lorylim were still a thing John didn’t entirely understand and, given by what he knew about them, that was probably as Gaia intended it to be. Still, what even were they?

Questions the Abyss Auction hadn’t been able to answer, so he wouldn’t be able to do so himself.

They reached the crowd, not a small one whatsoever, waiting to get on the boat. “Do we get in line…?” John wondered, looking over to check for personal that could answer that question. First, however, he had to get Stirwin out of the water; the little guy was holding onto the wooden planks by his teeth, but his legs were too short to pull himself up. “And you are called the Celestial Devourer,” John joked at the crocodile’s face, “look at you, can’t even get on land.”

What followed could have been an act of revenge or one of a very excited (not to mention scaled) puppy. Stirwin hasted from John’s hands, into his sleeve and then climbed through there until he poked back out, rubbing harbour water all over John’s impeccable clothes. The enchantments would remove all stains, but it still wasn’t that great. The cute little squeal and big, silver eyes Stirwin gave him made John forgive him though. “No idea what you are good for yet, but you are a cute one,” he admitted with a sigh and scratched the infinity elemental under the chin.

He returned to the group as a whole just in time for Amalia to staccato her way over to them, which was a really daring choice of footwear for a floor that had gaps the perfect size to fall into. “Please tell me we won’t have to stand in that line,” he greeted her. “Like, I don’t want to sound entitled, but I kind of feel like I should be entitled given that we were given the VIP apartment.”

“No, you don’t have to wait in line,” Amalia gave them the good news first, “not that it would take you long if you had to, though.” She gestured at the boat, and John now came to realize that there was a bunch of platforms flying up and down and dropping people on their floor to get comfortable. With one for each platform and a maximum of 50 people per ride, it indeed couldn’t have taken too long for everyone to get on board.

“Where do we go then?” he asked, successfully ignoring Eliza and Sylph fighting about which sweets were the best in the background. Amalia pointed them towards a separate platform that was currently being unused.

“As I won’t be coming with you on this cruise, I would like to say goodbye to you right here,” the guild leader reached out her hand. John took it and, in a gesture that was looking presumably overly friendly to all, pulled her in a one-armed hug. “John Newman, I really don’t think this is appro-“ Amalia began to voice a complaint when John whispered into her ear.

“Just one thing, this isn’t a ploy to have me killed out in the middle of the ocean, is it?” he asked and kept a more than close eye on her, pumping all of his mana into Observe.

It was partially corrupted, but it told John what he needed to know. Amalia, first at a loss of words due to the suddenness of that question and then because she must have noticed that her powerful security measures had, at least partially, failed, didn’t answer before John released her and patted her on the side of her shoulder. “Sorry, just a wise policy,” he told her, “at least I know now that I won’t have to come to you for revenge if someone attacks me on that boat.”

“I guess that works out for me?” Amalia said in a slightly nervous tone. This first-hand experience of John’s powers, overcoming the best security in item form money could buy, had evidently made her more aware than ever that she wasn’t speaking to just some random strong mercenary here. “Have fun on your cruise!” She quickly walked away.

“Was that truly wise, Master?” Aclysia asked as they went over to the platform where someone was just waiting for them.

“Wiser than just boarding a ship with little to no insurance,” John told her as he clicked away the window. “Although it probably was rougher than necessary. If we ever see her again, I will apologize.”

“I think you should indeed do that,” Aclysia nodded and the platform began flying upwards.